


Definitely Actually a Love Story

by saltyavocado (rainglazed)



Series: BigBro!Derek verse [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Kid Fic, M/M, and Scott has excellent taste in friends, and a moron, another Derek Hale McCall fic yay!, for the first bit anyway, where Derek is blind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-28
Updated: 2012-09-28
Packaged: 2017-11-15 09:56:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/526027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainglazed/pseuds/saltyavocado
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Second and final part to the Bigbro!Derek verse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Definitely Actually a Love Story

**Author's Note:**

> Dialogue taken from this [fic gif](http://qhuinn.tumblr.com/post/25067416454/stiles-doesnt-know-how-to-say-he-needs-some) by qhuinn, who originally requested fanfic for this verse.

When he was ten Derek Hale McCall realized what it really meant to be a brother.

First Scott had been an idea, then a tadpole in his mother’s belly, then a squalling, noisy thing that woke everyone up late at night and took his parents away from him. Derek had resented the tiny, babbling distraction during the first few months but learned to ignore it — after all, it wasn’t like he needed to have his parents around all the time, he was older now. And if his parents looked at him sadly when he told them as much, well, they’d brought it on themselves, hadn’t they?

Then there had been that terrifying day when mom hadn’t come home, when the two of them got shipped to their aunt’s place for the afternoon. Derek remembers seeing his father hunched over the table before his aunt had hurried him away, the face he had always taken for granted fixed frozen in an expression that chilled Derek to his very bones.

“I’ll take care of you,” he had whispered to the small bundle in his arms, and realized that it was true.

And ever after that, even when his mother had come home from the hospital and their family was together again, Derek never forgot his promise.

“You and me, Scott, we’re brothers now.” 

“You’re my responsibility.”

When he was twelve Derek got grape soda down his pants because his baby brother had terrible taste in friends.

“So did it leak all the way to your underwear?” the kid asked him curiously, dodging Derek’s steps as he tried to escape to the bowling alley’s bathroom.

“I don’t know, why don’t I pour a soda on you so you can see what it’s like?” Derek had snapped back. The kid’s eyes widened and for a frantic moment Derek thought he had made him cry.

“Shoot, sorry, I didn’t—”

“Wait right there.” The kid darted back into the party room, stopping to pop his head back around the corner. ”Right there. No moving.”

Derek blinked.

“Pinky swear.”

“Okay,” he said stupidly, then felt like an idiot as he was left alone in the hallway wearing a pair of purple, rapidly-turning-sticky jeans.

He wasn’t kept waiting for long though. ”Okay, so I couldn’t decide whether I should get the same one or something different but my dad says that Coca Cola has different sorts of flavors all around the world and that’s just really cool so I thought that maybe I should bring some of those and then some others just in case only let’s not do the Fanta because Lydia says orange is just not my color.”

Derek finally settled for, “Who’s Lydia?”

“My ginger queen,” he said solemnly. He stopped then, a smile blooming slowly across his face. ”I’m doing the ginger ale,” he announced, then promptly upended a can of the stuff over his head.

He looked up into Derek’s shocked face and grinned. ”Now we’re even.”

He was still sputtering when Derek rushed him into the bathroom, yelling at him even as he cranked the paper towel dispenser and wet the stuff under a sink. ”What the heck are you doing kid, are you actually insane? Your mom’s going to have a heart attack when she comes to pick you up, how are you even going to bowl when you’re like this?”

“My mom’s dead.”

Derek froze, hand still mid swipe across the boy’s face. ”I’m sorry,” he finally choked out.

“Me too.” The voice was muffled, coming through the wad of brown paper. ”I wish she was still around to yell at me because dad doesn’t do it half as good.”

Derek began to lower his hand but the boy’s arm shot out and latched onto him, keeping the wad of paper over his face. ”I don’t think I want you to look at me right now,” he said sadly. His fingers dug in. ”Can you wait a minute?”

Derek breathed out quietly. ”Take all the time in the world.”

It was only later when he got into a highlighter fight with Scott that Derek learned that the kid was named Stiles and that orange, indeed, was not his color.

When he was fourteen Derek was punched in the face.

“And it was awesome.”

“Oh my—” Derek faltered as he noticed the look his mother was giving him, “—cow, Scott, Stiles showed you that movie, didn’t he?”

“Yep. It was totally fetch.”

“Great, glad to know Stiles is ruining my life even when he’s not even in the room with me.”

Scott dabbed at the rawness on Derek’s cheek and he flinched. ”You shouldn’t be picking on people smaller than you,” he said, in that earnest way only Scott could.

“I don’t pick on him. He has a bad habit of throwing himself in the line of fire.”

“No, I was talking about me, Derek. Stiles doesn’t like it when you pick on me.”

“Stiles should shut up because he’s not your big brother.”

“He said that your face is ugly and lopsided and that the next time you’re asleep he’s going to shave half your head so that you look like Harvey Two Face.”

Despite himself Derek felt a shiver creep up his spine. ”That kid needs to chill out. It was only a friendly scuffle.”

“I cried Derek.”

“Holy cow, Scott, you don’t just wave that around like it’s a badge of honor, it makes you look like a wimp.”

“Mom says there’s nothing wrong with a boy that cries.”

“I hate to break it to you buddy, but you’re going to get wailed on in middle school.”

Scott pursed his lips, angry. ”Well, at least I’ll have Stiles with me, and you won’t. Because you’re a mean fathead and he doesn’t like you,” he said a bit viciously.

And really, what could Derek say to that?

When he was sixteen Derek got his drivers license and ran into the Stilinski’s mailbox.

Honestly, he couldn’t tell which was worse — the fact that he ran into the Sheriff’s freaking mailbox or the fact that his son was there when he did it and insisted on hanging the little red flag from his mirror, laughing every time he caught sight of it for months.

Actually, if he was being completely honest, the worst part was that Derek always made a point of driving him and Scott home from school every day afterwards, just so that he could hear that laugh. 

It always felt like it bubbled up from inside him, like he didn’t get to let it out nearly often enough.

When he was seventeen Derek had Kate Argent and then he didn’t.

There really isn’t that much more to say about it.

When he was twenty one Derek came home from college to find his brother had filled out, the baby fat and awkward limbs gone in favor of muscle and height. There may or may not have been well intentioned jostling and to his surprise Derek realized he could no longer pin Scott down in a wrestling match.

Stiles was still no problem though.

“Man, this isn’t even fair,” he griped, picking himself off the grass. He grimaced down at his clothes. ”I still hate you, just for the record.”

“It’s been duly noted,” Derek said wryly. ”I’ve only had nine odd years to notice.”

“Oh shut up Mister Sass and Sour.”

Derek choked. Scott had to run up and pound him on the back. 

“Well, it’s nice to see some things haven’t changed,” he managed to gasp when he got his breath back.

Stiles’s face went a little stiff. ”Glad not to disappoint.”

Derek actually doesn’t hate the guy so he scrambled for an answer. ”No, it’s a good thing man, like. I come back to town and everything is a little bit different — new sign for the school, my dad’s redecorated the kitchen, Scott’s become a chick magnet-“

“Hey!”

“-but you’re still just like I remembered. Same old Stiles.” Derek grinned at him reassuringly and Stiles seemed to catch himself, made his lips tug up to grin back.

“Well, if that’s what you want me to be,” he said jokingly, pulling a face. ”You know me Derek — always happy to be of assistance.”

When he’s twenty five Derek Hale McCall is alone in a Jeep with Stiles Stilinski and he feels like something is slipping through his fingers.

They usually don’t talk after these things and Derek hates it. He wants to say something, can feel the words building and building in the back of his throat and nothing ever makes it out.

He didn’t want this.

Stiles looks over at him when he doesn’t get out immediately. ”We’re here,” he points out unnecessarily.

“I know.”

Stiles waits for him to continue. ”Is it a family thing? Did you have a fight with your dad or something, because I can drop you off at a friend’s house if you like.”

“I don’t have any friends that live around here anymore.”

“Hey, you have me.”

“You’re different,” and immediately Derek knows it’s the wrong thing to say.

“Dude, we’re having sex. I’d think we’d at least be friends or something, but like. You’re not even friend zoning me, you’re pushing me out of the friend zone altogether and into some cold, arctic place where you can hear the wolves howling at night.”

“I meant-” Derek stops, gathers his thoughts. ”You’re more than a friend. You’re-“

“Please don’t say fuck buddy cause that’s just a little awkward.”

“Stiles, would you just shut up and let me talk.”

“Then go ahead and actually say something!”

“I’m trying, sheesh. How easy do you think it is to-” he breaks up, can feel a flush creeping up underneath his collar.

“To what, Derek?” Stiles leans over and Derek can feel the warmth from his breath skidding over his face. ”To say, ‘Hey, thanks for the lay, let’s get together and do it again sometime?’ Because, really, it’s not that hard.”

“No, it’s not,” Derek snaps back. “You know what’s hard? Saying that a good lay, whatever the hell that means, isn’t just what I want.” He gulps. ”That maybe I want more.”

Stiles goes still. ”You better be saying what I think you’re saying or I might just have to punch you in the face. And then maybe cry.”

“Stiles, can we stop doing — whatever it is we’re doing now? I don’t — let’s go out for a movie sometime, okay? I’ll let you choose. We can even watch one of those awful sci-fi flicks you like so much.”

“You’re not using the d-word.” Stiles is still tense, but there’s something a little like wonder in his face and the look he gives Derek is tentatively happy. ”Although, you totally don’t have to. If you don’t want to. We can totally go out together and do things that people-who-aren’t-just-fucking go out and do together.”

“Yeah. I. I just thought I should let you know,” he says, feeling lame. He turns to get out of the car so he can escape and dwell on how badly he fails at being a functional human somewhere Stiles can’t see him.

“Well you kind of suck at communication but I get it. And just for the record, I love you to.”

Derek almost falls out of the car.

“Although-“

He turns to look at Stiles. ”What’s wrong?”

Hesitating, Stiles finally shakes his head. ”Nothing.”

“Alright.” He waits a bit, but when Stiles isn’t forthcoming he turns to leave again.

And Stiles grabs his arm. ”Wait.”

“What.”

“You- you know what.”

And Derek thinks about the child he knew at four years old and the skinny kid that would give him hell at every turn because he cared about his friend and sympathetic boy who had understood Derek’s grief all too well and the brash, bright, amazing teen who was always willing to wait when Derek was too stupid to know his own mind.

And yeah, he does know.

“C’mere.”

And when Stiles leans close, Derek’s lips brush against the shell of his ear and he whispers the words he’s not brave enough to say out loud.

When he’s twenty five Derek Hale McCall finally finds the courage to tell Stiles Stilinski that he loves him. 

Fortunately, Stiles Stilinski is in love with him too.


End file.
